“I’ll go with you,” Rafe said.
“There’s no need to. I’ll be perfectly fine on my own.”
“It’s a lot of money,” Rafe said.
“Yes, but nobody will know that I have it. I’ll be perfectly safe. As long as I make sure I have plenty of gas in the car, I won’t have to stop until I get there, and I won’t have to stop on the way home. I’ll be fine. And if I have to wait for you, I’ll be wasting time. She said she’d call back in two hours. That’s pushing it, even if I leave right now. Stay with José and look at the cameras at the bus depot. Maybe you can figure out where she went and we won’t have to give her the money.”
He didn’t answer, and I added, “You’re already there. It doesn’t make any sense for you to stop what you’re doing and leave again. And if you want to leave, José has to leave, since he drove you. Just stay there. I’ll be fine on my own.”
“Maybe Tammy can go with you,” Rafe said.
I rolled my eyes. “I’m sure Grimaldi would be happy to go with me. But I don’t need her to. She has a job to do as well. And a murder to solve. And five hundred thousand dollars to track down. Our measly fifty grand is a drop in the bucket in comparison. This isn’t her case. It’s Mendoza’s. Although I can call him and ask if he’d like to go to Sweetwater with me.”
“No,” Rafe said. “That’s all right. If you wanna go on your own, you go on your own.”
I grinned. So did Grimaldi.
“I’ll give you a call when I get there,” I said, “just so you know everything’s all right. Meanwhile, just do what you can to figure out where she is, OK? That way, maybe we can save Darcy’s money.”
Rafe said he would. “Be careful, darlin’.”
“Always,” I said, and didn’t realize until I’d hung up that I had given him the same pat answer he always gave me. I wondered if it annoyed him as much as it usually did me.
* * *
“I CAN GO with you if you want,” Grimaldi offered as she pulled the car away from the curb and back into traffic crossing the Victory Memorial Bridge. “If you’re worried.”
I shook my head. “I’m really not. I’ve made the drive from Nashville to Sweetwater dozens of times since I moved here, and nothing’s ever happened to me. There’s no reason to think anything will happen this time. I don’t need an escort. You have a murder to solve and five hundred thousand dollars to account for, and I’d much rather have Rafe and José here, doing whatever they can to find Denise Seaver before we have to hand over the money. She’s here in Nashville, and if they can find her, all the rest of it will be moot.”
Grimaldi nodded, and signaled to turn north on Second Avenue, between police headquarters and the Ben West Building. “I’ll drive you home and let you pick up your car. Then I’ll get back to work on Devon’s murder. With any luck, that subpoena will come in soon, and I can figure out who the IP address belongs to. Once we know who sent the email, we’ll be a step closer to figuring out who’s behind this.”
“It’s possible to trace a wire transfer, I assume?”
“With a subpoena,” Grimaldi said. “No financial institution is just going to hand over depositor information. And if the account is foreign, that makes it all the more difficult.”
“Is this one foreign?”
“We’ll have to see,” Grimaldi said, and signaled to turn right onto the Jefferson Street Bridge, back across the river. We were executing one big square, and would end up a mile or maybe two from where we’d started, at the house on Potsdam Street. “I’m going to start with the IP address and see where that takes me. Chances are that’s located somewhere around here. Someone shot Devon Knight, and it wasn’t the Russians.”
No, it wasn’t. “Will you let me know what happens?”
“If anything does,” Grimaldi said. “But you’ve got some pretty heavy stuff on your own plate right now. I’ll probably let you deal with that first. I don’t think I’ll be arresting anyone today. Not unless we get lucky and nab Denise Seaver. But I don’t think I’m close enough to arrest anyone for Devon’s murder.”
“Do you have a suspect?”
She hesitated. “I have a theory. Actually, I have more than one theory. Several theories. I’m willing to bet one of them is right. But right now, it could go a couple of different ways.”
I had my mouth open to ask her to share, when she added, “And I’m not going to tell you anything about it. You have enough to deal with.”
“It might make for a nice distraction,” I said. With an ingratiating smile.
I got a jaundiced look back. “Now’s not the time to get distracted. If things work out tonight, I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow. By then, maybe I’ll even have some proof.”
Fine. “Fine,” I said. “Be that way.”
“You do realize that I don’t have to tell you anything, right? You’re a civilian. By rights, you should be a suspect. Your fingerprints are all over that desk.”
“Of course they are. I sat there and worked most of the day Monday and half of Tuesday. It’s not like I’m going to take messages wearing gloves!”
“I’m just saying,” Grimaldi said, “that you’re lucky I’m willing to share anything at all with you. I don’t have to.”
“You don’t seriously suspect me?”
“No,” Grimaldi said, “but someone who doesn’t know you might. You’d better be grateful this is my case and not someone else’s. Like Jaime Mendoza’s.”
“He wouldn’t suspect me, either.”
“Probably not,” Grimaldi admitted, “although it would be fun to see him interrogate you. Especially with your husband watching.”
“They talked yesterday,” I informed her. “Over Carmen’s dead body. Mendoza was quite nice about us horning in on his crime scene.”
“He’s a nice guy. And a good cop. And someone should probably get in touch with him and tell him what’s going on.”
I nodded. “Someone should.” But it wouldn’t be me.
“Do you think your husband will?”
“Maybe not. Although he might. But he’s not used to having to keep other people in the loop on what he’s doing.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Grimaldi said. “Give me a call after you hear from Seaver about the money drop. I’ll let Jaime know, and we’ll coordinate an op between the two of us and your husband.”
I told her I would, as we started up Potsdam Street toward the house. “It’ll be a couple of hours, though. She knows exactly how long it’ll take me to drive from Nashville to Sweetwater. I’m sure she’s done it plenty herself, back and forth to St. Jerome’s, coordinating all the baby sales with Doctor Rushing. She won’t call again until she’s sure I have the money.”
“No worries,” Grimaldi said, and flicked on the signal to turn the car into the gravel driveway leading up to Mrs. Jenkins’s house. “We’ve all got plenty to do while we wait. If he finds her, I’m sure your husband will let you know.”
I was sure he would, too. “He has my number.”
Grimaldi stopped the sedan behind the Volvo, and I opened my door and started the process of shoe-horning myself out. “Thanks for taking me with you this morning.”
“I enjoyed the company,” Grimaldi said. And ruined the warm fuzzies by added, “Spending time with you is usually entertaining.”
“I’m sorry our problems are distracting you from your own case.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Grimaldi said. “The prison escape and kidnapping might not be my case, but I’m a cop. It’s still my responsibility to do what I can. And it was my case the last time. I want Denise Seaver back behind bars as much as you do.”
“I appreciate the help. I’m sure Rafe does, too, even if he’ll probably never say so.” By now I was out of the car and leaning down with my hand on the door. “I need to go.”
Grimaldi nodded. “Drive carefully. I know it’s tempting to try to get there as fast as possible, but saving Carmen’s baby and losing your own because you crash wouldn’t make any
body happy.”
No. Except maybe Denise Seaver. “I’ll be careful,” I promised.
“I’ll wait for you to get going.” She indicated the Volvo.
“It’s all right. I have to go inside and get the suitcase for the money.” And pee. I always have to pee, and it had been quite a while since I’d had the chance.
“Don’t you think Darcy has a suitcase?”
“She probably does. But I’m already taking her money. I don’t want to take her suitcase, too. It’ll only take a minute.” I waved her off. “Just go. Do your thing. There’s no need for you to sit here and wait for me to come back out. All I’m going to do, is get in the car and drive away.”
I headed for the stairs. The gravel crunched under my shoes. Behind me, Grimaldi reversed and began to maneuver past the Volvo and bike. I climbed the stairs and watched until she was on her way down the driveway. Then I waved and turned and fitted the key in the lock.
* * *
I WASN’T KIDDING about having to pee. The first thing I did when I got inside—after making sure the door was locked behind me, obviously—was quickstep down the hallway toward the downstairs bath, without even taking my shoes off first. The heels were clicking on the hardwoods. One of these days I really was going to do as I said and start wearing flats.
For now, I lifted my skirt, pulled down my panties, and sank down on the toilet with a sigh of relief.
I’ll spare you a detailed description of the next minute and a half. Suffice it to say I had to pee a lot. And the baby felt like it had taken up permanent residence on my bladder. And I had three more months of pregnancy to go. I could only imagine how much worse it was going to get.
After my business was finished, I dropped my skirt, washed my hands, and headed back into the hallway to go find a suitcase I thought would be big enough to hold fifty thousand dollars worth of small bills.
Only to stop—on a dime, as the saying goes—when I came within sight of the front door. “Hello, Savannah,” Denise Seaver said, looking at me down the length of a very businesslike pistol.
TWENTY
My jaw dropped. “How did you get here? I locked the door!”
She gestured with the pistol. “Through the back.”
“You couldn’t have! I would have heard you walk by.”
“Three hours ago,” Denise Seaver said.
I blinked. “You’ve been here for three hours? You were here when you called me?”
She nodded. And smiled that beneficent smile that never fails to get on my nerves, especially now that I know what she’s really like.
“Why?”
“I thought I’d find you here,” Denise Seaver said, with a faintly annoyed wrinkle between her brows now, “but by the time I got here, you were gone.”
“Detective Grimaldi came and got me. Someone had broken into the office and taken the petty cash. I assume that was you?”
“I was looking for your new address,” Denise Seaver said, “since you’d moved from the apartment you used to live in.”
Her tone of voice indicated that I’d had no right to inconvenience her.
“The petty cash was just sitting there, I suppose, and you thought you might as well take it?”
“I needed to buy a stroller,” Denise Seaver said. “Even newborns get heavy when you carry them around for hours.”
“Speaking of newborns...” I looked around. “Where’s the baby?”
She gestured up the stairs with the gun.
“May I?”
She inclined her head, and stepped back as I moved forward. I guess maybe she was afraid I’d make a grab for the gun. She didn’t have to worry. I’ve been shot before—by Denise Seaver, as it happens; the one and only time it’s happened to me—and I had absolutely zero desire for it to happen again.
Not to mention that these days, it’s not just my own welfare I have to worry about, but that of the baby inside me, too.
So I moved forward and she withdrew into the corner until I had gone past her and was on my way up the stairs. Then she came out of the corner and followed, with the gun no doubt trained on my back.
I stopped in the upstairs hallway. “Where?”
It was so quiet up here, that to be honest, I had grave concerns about the welfare of the baby.
For some reason, I thought maybe she’d put it in the nursery-under-construction down the hall from the master bedroom. That’s where our baby would be, once it joined us. But with more than three months to go, the nursery wasn’t ready. One item of particular importance that was missing was a baby bed.
So Carmen’s baby wasn’t there. Instead, Denise Seaver jerked the gun toward the lavender bedroom across the hall from the master. It had been Tondalia Jenkins’s bedroom while she’d been living here, and Mother had slept in it the night after my botched wedding ceremony.
The baby looked impossibly tiny in the middle of the queen sized bed. I crept over, as quietly as I could, so I wouldn’t wake it.
It was minuscule, it was wrinkled, its face looked sort of scrunched up, and between you and me, it wasn’t very pretty. Tufts of black hair alternately stood up on the top of its head, or were glued to its skin. It looked something like the human equivalent of a baby bird.
There was no way to guess whether it was a boy or girl. Not unless I unwrapped it. The face gave no clues whatsoever.
As far as other things went, its skin color was middling. Darker than mine. Maybe not as dark as Rafe’s. I didn’t think our baby would end up being as dark as Rafe, either, since my Caucasian coloring would probably act like a good dollop of cream in his coffee.
Try as I might, I couldn’t see anything of Rafe in the little face in front of me. Hair and skin, sure, but a lot of people have golden skin and black—or almost black—hair. Carmen did, too. It didn’t necessarily mean that Rafe had contributed to this one’s DNA.
On the other hand, it didn’t mean he hadn’t.
I didn’t recognize any of his features in the tiny face. But since I also didn’t recognize any of Carmen’s, that wasn’t necessarily significant. It was just a tiny, wrinkled, newborn baby. It could have been anybody’s.
“Cute,” I lied.
Denise Seaver gave me a jaundiced look, as if she suspected I was fibbing. “Pick it up.”
I took a step back. “Me? Why do I have to?”
“Because I’ve got the gun,” Denise Seaver said.
And OK, that was a powerful incentive. I thought about offering to take it off her hands, but I didn’t think she’d go for it. Or think it was funny. “What about the suitcase? I came inside to get a suitcase for the money. So I could take it to Sweetwater and fill it.”
“I’ll carry the suitcase,” Denise Seaver said, gesturing with the gun. “You pick up the baby.”
I didn’t want to pick up the baby. First, because I figured it would probably wake up and start screaming if I tried to move it. And second, because I just didn’t want to touch it. It seemed wrong.
“We can do this the easy way,” Denise Seaver told me, “or the hard way.”
Me doing what I was told was probably the easy way. “What’s the hard way?”
“I shoot the brat,” Denise Seaver said, moving the muzzle of the gun in the direction of the tiny scrap of life in the middle of the big bed, “and nobody has to carry it.”
“No.” I took a quick step forward. “That won’t be necessary. I’ll take it.”
“I thought you would,” Denise Seaver said, with that nasty smirk.
The baby felt even smaller in my arms than it had looked in the middle of the big expanse of bed, and it weighed practically nothing. When I first lifted it, it mewled a little bit, and its tiny face scrunched in a grimace. But then it settled back down in my arms. I had to sort of rest it on the ledge of my stomach.
“Where’s the suitcase?” Denise Seaver asked.
“Master bedroom closet.” I was too busy holding the baby and looking down at it to even consider whether now might be a g
ood time to try to make a grab for the gun. The baby was small and helpless, and looking at it, knowing that it was my responsibility to keep it safe, at least for the next few hours, was like nothing I’d ever felt before. I loved Dix’s girls, and would gladly kill anyone who tried to hurt them. I loved David, and would have mauled anyone who tried to hurt him, with my own hands if I had to. But this was different. This tiny creature was dependent on me for everything. It couldn’t move anywhere if I didn’t carry it. It would starve if I didn’t feed it. Without me, it had no chance at all.
As if it had heard me, its little face contorted, and then its eyes opened. Big eyes, dark. Might be Rafe’s eyes. Might be Carmen’s. Could be someone else’s entirely. It didn’t matter. In that moment of holding it, and feeling its fragile body and towering need for comfort and help, I knew that if this was Rafe’s baby and I ended up raising it, I could love it. I didn’t yet. I could give it up if it wasn’t his and we had no claim on it. But if it was his, it was mine, and I would love it as much as anyone could.
It gathered its little body. Its face contorted, and it let out a stomach-curdling scream.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, panicked. “What does it want?”
“He.” Denise Seaver sounded irritable. I felt a moment of understanding and kinship. If she had listened to wails like this for the past day, I could understand her irritability. The screams felt like they were piercing my ear drums and digging into my brain. All I wanted to do was stop it—him—from screaming.
“Well, excuse me. You’ve got him wrapped up. It’s not like I can see his private parts.”
Denise Seaver gave me a look. “He’s probably wet and hungry. Why don’t you get some practice and change him.”
I could do that. I had changed Dix’s daughters’ diapers before. Different gender, but the same process.
Denise Seaver tossed the bag of diapers on the bed as I unwrapped the blankets around the baby. It was so tiny, with such twig-like little arms and legs that were flailing wildly. The diaper was indeed soggy with wetness, and I took it off. Only to have to jump back to avoid being sprayed again. “God!”
Scared Money (Savannah Martin Mysteries Book 13) Page 22